Jordan’s thoughts: I am inclined to trust these two teams know what they’re doing given that they appeared in last year’s championship. But who knows? I am Jordan and I sure as hell do not know.

In this deal, HLR seems to just be adding prospects in order to flip them after the season starts to one of the tanking teams. Yordan Alvarez could be awesome, or he could be AJ Reed in left field. Nate Pearson could be Noah Syndergaard, or he could blow his arm out. More likely, he shoots up prospect lists in 2018 and HLR trades him for profit. Or the Blue Jays announce that Pearson is being converted to a relief pitcher and HLR trades him to Hydra for all their good players. I’ve got to be perfectly honest. I am Jordan and since these players are prospects, I have never heard of them.

The best piece going to HLR in this deal might just be Freddy Galvis, who is not particularly good but shows up every day. These same things were once said about Andrelton Simmons and he is now a valuable fantasy commodity. As a True Grinder™, Galvis embodies what HLR is all about, minus the penchant for trolling. Maybe HLR will flip Freddy to one of the teams that don’t have an obvious resolution at SS going into the season, who could use the cheap, at-least-he-plays-every-day depth.

Also, why did HLR include the $9? Does he just hate Shohei Ohtani? It seems like that money would’ve been better served adding one of the many awesome available players at auction, like James Shields or Mitch Moreland.

For the defending points and league champion, well, what was the point of this? Castellanos is, like, the third best 3B on this roster? Maybe second best, since the new humidor in Arizona is guaranteed to turn Rake Lamb back into plain old Jake Lamb. At any rate, CAP has no real need for Castellanos and should’ve just saved the prospects for in-season, at which point they could be flipped to a tanker for an obvious need. Now that the payout structure has been changed unilaterally to reward the teams with the best farm systems (forgot to tell you guys this, sorry, telling you here and now, thanks!), trading off prospects seems especially odd.

Blake Rutherford is just whatever. He could be awesome (yay!), could be the next AJ Reed (sad!), or could just be the same guy as Yordan Alvarez (yawn!). He’s on some lists. He’s not on other lists. Lists are important and I am sure that CAP hopes one day, Rutherford is on them all. Again, this guy is a prospect, so I, Jordan, have never heard of him.

The strange part of this trade is the inclusion of $44 Addison Russell. He’s basically the same guy as Galvis — not super efficient but plays every day; reliable; boring — but costs $39 more. Why not just keep Galvis, CAP? Even with the $9, Russell is too expensive. Sure, Russell has some upside, but he’s just such a risky guy to go out and acquire and then keep. So weird.

Final thought: HLR is getting the most cost controlled players, therefore HLR wins the trade. Freddy Galvis is interesting. Addison Russell is expensive. Castellanos has a funny name. I am Jordan and I approve this trade review.

We Talk Fantasy Sports’ thoughts: Here is how this trade would look if it were a graph:

A year ago, AJ Reed was all the rage. One hundred and forty one abysmal MLB at-bats later, he’s kind of an afterthought. Like, when I got the trade accepted e-mail, it took my brain a moment to recall who he was. I thought it was Addison Reed for a split second. Off-season depth charts aren’t worth much, but he’s like fourth at 1B for Houston. His .236 BABIP indicates that he was super unlucky, but still. He struck out 34% of the time. It was just a disastrous limited stint for him with the Astros last year. We absolutely shouldn’t give up on him and he’s hit at every level he’s played at so he’ll probably be fine, but speaking purely in terms of value, you would think his is greatly diminished at this moment in time.

Meanwhile, Stephen Strasburg was awesome again last year. I guess $66 is expensive for a guy who is always hurt and who you can’t reliably bank on to pitch for you in the playoffs. Still, I’d be pretty happy with 20-25 Strasburg starts supplemented by five from some replacement pitcher. On a rate basis, there aren’t many better than Strasburg, so whatever innings he does give you are likely to be of the elite variety.

For Team Canada, there was definitely a need to free up budget space, so I get it. I guess both teams are taking risks of varying degrees: TC that Reed can be a useful hitter (can’t be much worse than a $24 Lucas Duda, right?) and HLR that Strasburg’s arm doesn’t simply fall off or become absorbed into his torso somehow.

Jordan’s thoughts: I really do not have a feel for this trade. Both of the players exchanged are guys I would personally stay away from. Sure, if you get either one, in some favorable deal, great.

I like watching Straburg pitch. So I guess I’d prefer to have him. But, the price tag is right in the range where I start to sweat. He’s easily capable of making it look like a bargain. But, well, he’s pitched 200 innings once in his career. That was three years ago. That’s pretty distasteful.

AJ Reed was pretty crappy in his first MLB experience. It is amazing to me that all prospects don’t break out great out of the box. I’d like to be patient with him and see what happens. But, if I were in a position of needing an ace, I’d trade AJ Reed in a heartbeat.

If I’m HLR, I’d rather use this bullet after the draft. I think it would have existed.